Selective Coloring Using Photoshop Mask

Today we are going to cover how to quickly isolate a part of your image and make it black and white (or to whatever color you want). We will be using the mask technique because it is far more sufficient than the Eraser tool. With a mask, you are able to go back and hide/unhide sections even after you have reopened the file.

Preparing Your Layer in Photoshop

In Photoshop, duplicate background layer by using the keyboard shortcut CTRL-J. Let’s call this layer Duplicate.

The Duplicate layer will be used for the black and white portion of the image. Hit CTRL-U to bring the HUE/SATURATION window up. Drag the Saturation down to -100 (all the way to the left). Then hit OK to accept the changes.

Create an all-visible mask on the Duplicate layer. An all-visible mask is a mask with a white canvas that at default, will display all of the masked layer.

Masking for Effect

With the mask box highlighted, use the paintbrush (B) with a foreground color of black (#000) to paint the portion you want to hide. Hiding a certain section of the Duplicate layer will display the Background layer which has the original colors.

The final image should look something like this:

What’s else can you do?

Like I mentioned earlier, you are not limited to just a black and white effect. You can create some other interesting effects on the duplicate layer, then use the mask technique to cover the certain sections.